


Roman

by ThoseDaysThatWill



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Pining, babies are adorable, google translate german, rookies are trouble
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 07:40:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17741726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoseDaysThatWill/pseuds/ThoseDaysThatWill
Summary: Sergei was right, everyone would have to notice that he’s good-looking. It was all the more obvious up close like this. I felt something in my stomach that I tried very hard to ignore. Don’t be a rookie. Don’t be a rookie. I would have given everything if someone could have blown a whistle at that exact moment, but I’ve never been that lucky.Roman muses on his first few seasons in the NHL.





	Roman

**Author's Note:**

> All German is from Google Translate, and it's not proper Swiss German at that, please look past that.
> 
> All errors are my own, please be kind if you spot them.

“Don’t even think about it, kid.”

I had been in the locker room for all of fifteen minutes when the comment was made by someone behind me. I could guess by the accent, maybe a Russian or something close to it. I turned around to explain that I didn’t know what he was warning me against, but seeing who it was, I almost laughed. The guy calling me ‘kid’ couldn’t have been a year or two older than me. I had turned twenty-one that past summer, he couldn’t have been more than twenty. Attitude the size of Russia, but a face that made me wonder how far out of Juniors he was. I must have smiled, because he rolled his eyes.

“Do not think about what?” I had worked hard on having as little of an accent as possible, but one season Milwaukee wasn’t enough to perfect my English.

He shook his head with a laugh, “I saw you checking out ‘El Capitan’ over there. He might be nice to look at, but there’s no play there at all.” He flashed me a smirk. I wasn’t sure it was supposed to be a joke or a flirt. Either way, it didn’t work.

“I do not…. get what you say.” I could translate all the words, but the order he put them in made no sense at all. Part of me wanted to just nod and thank him for the suggestion, but I was afraid that the smirk meant something else and I didn’t want to get into that my first day on the team.

“Parlez-vous?” He asked with another smirk. The look was starting to make me uncomfortable, but I could tell already that admitting that to this guy would cause me more trouble than just suffering through this conversation and turning him down after.

“Un peu…” I really hoped the conversation wasn’t going to have to be in French. I took it in school like everyone else, but mine was terrible. I didn’t use it much. I had spent a lot more time working on my English. “Sprichst du Deutsch?” I asked, hopefully. My mother would have been appalled at my using casual form with a stranger, but I wasn’t about to use Sie with this guy. I could already tell he’d run with that.

He shook his head adamantly which made his hair stick out in a way I’m sure he didn’t intend. “Uh, no. English, American, Belarussian, Russian, some French. That’s it.”

“You English is very good. Mine need work.” I hoped a little chat on languages would be enough for him to forget what he’d come over to talk to me about in the first place. Maybe I could escape without being humiliated.

“For a European rookie, yours is great. You’re German?” He looked me up and down, as if he could tell just by looking me over.

“Nein, I am Swiss.” I held my hand out to him, “Roman Josi.”

He took my hand with the kind of smirk I had to look away from. “Sergei Kostitsyn. Welcome to Nashville, _Roman_.” I didn’t like the way he trilled my name, it made me feel like I needed a shower.

I took my hand back as soon as I could, “Danke. I am look forward to go out on ice.” There were words missing in that sentence, but I couldn’t think of what ones they were at the moment. I just wanted to get out of his line of sight as soon as possible.

“You score much?” He leaned up against my stall, his posture suggesting that he wasn’t referring to my on-ice stats. I tried not to sigh, but that clearly meant he wasn’t about to walk away soon enough for my comfort.

I shook my head, “I am… defenseman.” I tried to pronounce it like the Canadians in Milwaukee did, but it didn’t roll off my tongue. We had the same word in German, but we didn’t put the accents in the same place. Former teammates told me I sounded like an idiot when I said it that way, so I made sure not to. To me, it sounded stupid the Canadian way, but I’d have to deal with it.

“Ohhhh, so that’s why you were staring at the boss like that, huh? You want to partner up with him?” Sergei laughed, “It doesn’t matter. He’s off limits.”

Subconsciously, I was glancing around the locker room. I didn’t recognize anyone nearby that I could signal to come and help me. I had made some friends in Milwaukee but they weren’t in the locker room at the moment. I frowned at him, “I… what do you mean?”

He rolled his eyes at me, “We all noticed the guy is good looking, but he’s taken.”

I sighed, “I do not want to take him. I just want to play hockey.”

Sergei laughed, “Right, sure. He’s a good-looking guy. It’s okay that you noticed, we all notice.” He patted my shoulder, leaving his hand there a little too long. It felt like he was stalking prey. If ever a team name fit a player, it was this one for him. I don’t know if that was a turn on for anyone else, but it was extremely uncomfortable for me.

Another voice joined the conversation, “Excuse me. You’re Roman, right?”

I have never been so relieved for a teammate’s interruption. I nodded quickly, “Yes, that is me.”

“I’m Mike Fisher. I’ve been looking for you. Coach wants to talk to you.” He gestured to a hallway on the other side of the locker room, “I’ll show you where his office is.”

I quickly stepped towards the hallway and Mike put himself between me and Sergei as soon as there was room for him. Once we were far enough away that Sergei had lost interest, Mike stopped walking.

He offered his hand out to shake, which I did. “I’m sorry that was your welcome to the team. His bark is worse than his bite. It’s okay to tell him to be quiet and leave you alone. He did the same thing to me when I came to the team last season. I’m like you, though, I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t like his… style. I’m used to leaving that kind of thing to Chris—he’s my husband, he’s still in Ottawa. He always took care of things like that for me. But here, I had to learn to do it myself.”

I’m sure I blushed, but Mike was too nice to point it out. I wasn’t used to people actually admitting that being hit on like that made them uncomfortable. And he spoke slowly and so clearly that I could understand every word he said, but he wasn’t talking down to me like I was a child. I liked him right away. I think everyone has that feeling the first time they talk to him.

“Danke. I think… when I have be here some time, I can do that.” I smiled. It was easy to be comfortable around him.

He nodded, “I’m sure. Well, I’ve got an appointment with the trainer before practice and I don’t want to be late. I’ll see you later.”

“Oh! Es tut mir Leid. But where is the coach?” I looked around the slowly emptying locker room.

Mike laughed, “I made that up. I’ll see you out on the ice.”

I wonder if Mike had a single teammate at any time during his whole career that _didn’t_ have at least a little crush on him. I doubt it. I found myself with a little crush that day. Of course, I wouldn’t dare suggest it to him, it wouldn’t have been respectful. Mike is that kind of guy that you just want to be respectful to. Besides, I met his husband a little while later and he could break me in half and not look back. I had fourteen penalty minutes all of that season. I’m pretty sure Chris Neil had fourteen penalty minute _games_.

I tried not to look like a total rookie when I stepped out on the ice that day. I played for a pro team in Bern, but there was something very different about stepping on NHL ice for the first time as an actual NHL player. If I thought I was going to be able to have a quiet moment, I was mistaken. A mere minute after I skated my first lap, I was met with a brick wall. I admit I was looking around and not in front of me, but in my defense, he shouldn’t have stopped in front of me like that. I will never live down the fact that I skated into him and ended up on my butt.

“I’m sorry!” Shea didn’t laugh at me, which was probably the only reason I didn’t drop dead from embarrassment on the spot. Thanks to the padding of hockey pants, the only thing that was wounded was my pride. Shea actually offered me a hand to pull myself up, which I took.

I brushed the snow off my pants and straightened out my jersey. Anything not to have to look up at him. I hadn’t answered Sergei’s question, but in truth I had noticed him. He was hard to miss, and I don’t just mean because he’s tall. He has a presence that I can’t put into words. He commands rooms just by walking into them, and rinks just by skating on them. I’m not the only one that thinks that, too. I’ve heard call ups and rookies talk about it a lot since then. Everyone feels it.

“Are you okay?” He asked, looking me over. His once-over didn’t have a tenth of the creepy factor that Sergei’s had. I could really believe that Shea was actually checking if I was hurt and nothing more suggestive than that.

Embarrassed, I mumbled, “Es geht mir gut. Ich hätte suchen müssen, wohin ich wollte. Es tut mir Leid.” I still hadn’t looked all the way up to his face yet. I didn’t want to, but I knew I had to make eye contact, to be polite. Slowly, I looked up and _damn_. Sergei was right, everyone would have to notice that he’s good-looking. It was all the more obvious up close like this. I felt something in my stomach that I tried very hard to ignore. _Don’t be a rookie. Don’t be a rookie._ I would have given everything if someone could have blown a whistle at that exact moment, but I’ve never been that lucky.

“What?” He had a very genuinely concerned look on his face.

It took me a few seconds to realize I hadn’t spoken in English. I had never done that before, in all the time I was in the States. I felt like a complete idiot. I had never had that issue, I don’t know anyone else that had either. When I was thinking about English and speaking English, it always came out as English. But for reasons completely beyond me, it came out as German, I had forgotten all my English, and I looked like an idiot. All I wanted was the ice to swallow me up, but it didn’t.

I tried very hard to think of something to say that wouldn’t make me look like a complete fool. Well, more of a complete fool than I already did. Or if I did look like a fool, at least a fool that could speak pretty nearly fluent English. But nothing jumped to mind. “Uh… I said… uh, I am, uh, that is, it was my fault. I should be look around me better.” I had better English than that, but for some strange reason, it had all escaped me. I would have given anything if this conversation could have been in German.  

Shea gave me what I’m sure was supposed to be an understand smile, but just made him look all the more attractive and made my stomach do more things that it had never done before. “Don’t worry about it. I’m Shea. And you’re Roman, right?”

I winced a little. Not only was I acting like an idiot who didn’t have a grasp on the English language, but I hadn’t even introduced myself. They were going to send me back to Milwaukee for sure. “Uh, yes. I am Roman. It is good to meet you, to be here.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m looking forward to playing with you.” He was very genuine and there wasn’t the slightest indication that he was being suggestive or flirty. And yet still my stomach flipped over a few times and I’m sure I was blushing. I wondered if all rookies had to deal with this.

“Hey, you making the rookies blush again?” A new voice, a new teammate, added to the conversation, and answered my question. I almost did a doubletake at his accent, he sounded like the locals in Milwaukee.

Even if I felt a little irrationally disappointed that we were interrupted, I could see that Shea visibly relaxed at his presence. I hadn’t even realized he wasn’t relaxed. I guess I had been tensed enough for both us. The smile he gave the guy was unmistakable.

“This is Roman. You remember they were telling us about him?” Shea gestured from me to the other man, “This is Ryan, my partner.”

Ryan laughed, “ _Partner_. I’m his _husband_.”

I wouldn’t have believed that someone like Shea could blush shyly, but he did, right there in front of me. And I found it… well, judging by the look Ryan shot me, I wasn’t supposed to find it exactly how I found it. I watched him angle himself so that he was standing very slightly between me and Shea, and I watched Shea counter how he was standing to allow it, even welcome it.

“Have you met the guys?” Ryan asked me.

I shook my head, “Some, but little. I talk to Mike…”

“I’m not surprised. He’s got that captainy way about him. You know the type?” Ryan gave Shea a slight shoulder and they both laughed. “Just Mike?”

“No, I meet… _Sergei…_ ” I tried very hard not to frown, but it wasn’t easy.

Ryan rolled his eyes, “Who let you meet Sergei before you met normal people?! Was he an asshole?” I saw Shea give him a slightly admonishing look, but Ryan ignored it.

“He…” I wasn’t about to make waves my first day on the team, but I didn’t want to lie either. “I like talk to Mike.”

Ryan snickered, but it was Shea that spoke, and I got the feeling he would have stepped on Ryan’s foot if they hadn’t both been wearing skates. “I’ll talk to Sergei about… whatever he said.”

I shook my head quickly, “You do not have to. It is fine.”

“I don’t mind.” Shea gave me that reassuring smile again. I wished he’d stop that.

Ryan rolled his eyes, “It won’t be the first or last time Sergei gets called out for being an ass to someone. We thought about putting ‘the talk’ on tape and just playing it for him every other day or so.”

Shea gave Ryan that admonishing look again and this time he obeyed. “I don’t mind saying something. He won’t bother you again.”

“Danke. But I do not want to be trouble.”

“It’s no trouble,” Shea promised.

Ryan nodded, gesturing out to the rest of the ice, “C’mon, we’ll introduce you around. You can see that we’re not all like him.”

He was right about that. As I got to know my new teammates, I discovered that none of them were like Sergei and that there were plenty of people willing to step in if he started hitting on me again. Eventually, he gave up trying, which I was grateful for, but it wasn’t until almost the end of that season that someone showed up that could actually keep him in line.

The team was comfortable, and I made friends with practically everybody. My English improved by a lot, and my hockey improved even more. I actually got to play a couple shifts with Shea, when Ryan missed a game, and I did all I could not to just watch him instead of the puck. When I was on the bench, I didn’t bother trying not to watch him. I learned more from just watching how he played than I did from having coaching talk at me or all the drills I ever did. I’m not going to go on and on about it, but there was something in his game that I worked every single day to emulate.

I scored my first goal at home on the power play. We were in the middle of a change of units, and I got out there just as Ryan left. Shea passed to me and I shot it just like I’d seen him do a thousand times. I didn’t really expect it to go in, but it did. I gave us the lead and Shea had set it up. He congratulated me! I could hardly think of anything else the rest of the game. Mike had a fight and all I could think about was that my first goal was set up by Shea. I am so glad I didn’t make an idiot of myself the rest of the game. We won, which is what really mattered.

I tried to like Ryan, I really did. And I wish I could say that I ‘knew’ what was going to happen or that I saw something in him, but I didn’t. Everyone thought that he and Shea were the ultimate perfect couple, with the kids and the dogs and the being in love with only each other. So, I have to admit that my not liking Ryan was nothing more than jealousy. As I got to know Shea, I realized that he wasn’t really like I expected. He is soft spoken and shy, he second guesses himself, he has amazing talent and still doubts himself. He’s nice to everyone and he never raises his voice, even when he’s mad. He’s a regular person. Granted, a painfully attractive regular person with a 108 mph slapshot.

To say I developed a crush on him is putting it far too mildly. And everyone in that locker room knew it. Except Shea. However, I wasn’t the only one in that room that had that problem. Everyone knew that Shea only had eyes for Ryan, but there were a lot of eyes on Shea. Of course, we all had too much respect for him to outwardly flirt with him. We knew that it would make him uncomfortable, we’d seen it enough from people on other teams. We’d also seen how Ryan had taken care of it the minute he noticed Shea was uneasy. Shea protected all his teammates on the ice but seemed to be happy to let Ryan swoop in and take care of him. I’d never seen Shea so much as look twice at anyone. I’d never seen Ryan look either. Which is what made what happened that July so shocking to all of us.

I was home in Bern when I heard about Ryan leaving the team. I have to confess that my first thought was that maybe I’d get a chance to play with Shea more now, since his _partner_ was gone. It was only a couple seconds later that it dawned on me that his _husband_ was gone too. Of course, I didn’t think they’d split up, no one would. And then I saw the press conference with Ryan and the pretty boy Minnesota had signed with him. I’d seen Ryan look like that before, at Shea. The shock of having a lockout seemed almost secondary to the shock of what Ryan did. I thought about calling Shea, but who did I think I was? I’m sure other teammates that knew him better were taking care of him. I tried not to feel resentful about the Philadelphia thing, because everyone knew why he did what he did, but it still felt insulting that he wanted to leave. Honestly, I tried not to think about him and to keep my focus on playing in Bern while the people in charge of the NHL were doing their thing to get us hockey again.

It was actually pretty nice to be able to stay home for a little while longer. I got to play with Mark Strait again, which was cool. He’s pretty much ‘the’ Swiss player in the NHL. Especially if you weren’t a goalie. He’d been captaining national teams since I was a kid, and besides that, he was on the cover for the Swiss version of pretty much every NHL video game. He wasn’t the first or the highest drafted, but he was the most experienced, and it was cool to be able to talk to him about the NHL in a language I was completely comfortable with. I also got to play with John Tavares. He’s a really good hockey player, sure, but, uh, he is, well, we didn’t chat a lot. He didn’t seem to mind, though, because he brought a Canadian with him who tended to glare at anyone that got too friendly with the guy.

 But as nice as being home was, I was glad to get back to Nashville and working on improving my game. Okay, and getting a chance to actually be partnered with Shea for more than one shift. I knew I’d have to earn the spot, and I was ready to do it. It wasn’t the best season we ever had, but it barely counted as a season because of the lockout. We didn’t have playoffs, by a long shot. When a defensive defenseman leads the team in points, and is fourth in goals, you know it wasn’t one for the record books. Even more ironically, that defenseman was having one of the worst years of his life.

Shea didn’t talk to anyone if he didn’t have to, never went out with the team, didn’t want to go to events unless they made him. Even when people tried to draw him out, it never worked. He went from rink to home and back, alone. It was the least “captainy”, as Ryan had once called it, that I had ever seen him. Nick had set himself up as his guard dog in the locker room, but it wasn’t needed around the team. We all wanted to protect him from what Ryan had done.

I had met Nick Spaling very briefly in Milwaukee but got to know him in Nashville. He was another member of the ‘really obvious crush on the Captain’ club, along with Alexander Radulov, who only joined the team at the end of last season and then went right back to Russia. Though to be honest, at least half the team had some kind of crush on Shea. Everyone wondered if he and Nick would hook up, but I don’t think they ever did. There had been something sordid going on between Nick and someone else last season, but being the new guy, no one told me anything. There were rumors about Shea and Alexander as well, but I barely got to know him before he was gone, so at the time I doubted that one too. We all figured he just wasn’t rebounding, though I don’t think there was anyone on the team that would mind terribly being Shea’s rebound. Except Mike, of course.

The next season was the first time I played with another Swiss player in the NHL. I had played with Simon on World Junior teams for years, but never on any season long teams. But he was up for such a short amount of time with the Preds that I really didn’t get to talk to him much. I was incredibly distracted anyway. Our coach was starting to pair me with Shea regularly and I had to work my butt off to keep that spot. Any little mental slip and there were a lot of defensemen waiting to step up to that top pairing, especially Seth. I wasn’t the hot new thing on D anymore, he was. So, I had to prove that I deserved my spot. I told myself that being so focused on my game, on the ice and off, didn’t leave me any room for dating or whatever else. I did manage to lie pretty convincingly to myself for a while.

It was early November that it finally changed. Well, maybe things started to change in October, but I didn’t realize it at the time. The second game of the season, Steve Downie left his skates to knock my head right off my shoulders. I had never actually seen stars after a hit, like they say in books, but that day I did. They told me that while I was laying down in the locker room, Shea had tried to beat the guy up for it, but the refs stopped him. I wish I could have appreciated it at the time, but I was too busy trying not to throw up. When he came in to check on me after the game, I think I thanked him, but I can’t be sure. I hope I did. I was mad that I would be missing some games, but I was most upset that I’d be missing our next game, which was against the Wild.

Concussions are just about the worst kind of injury, in my opinion, because you can’t do anything except lay in bed and hold on. A teammate checked in on me almost every day, and most of the time that was Shea. He brought me food that Bailey had put together and reminded me that I had to eat even if the idea made me want to throw up. I asked him to tell me about the games I was missing. I couldn’t watch the games, all the movement made me nauseous. I liked listening to him talk because he was naturally soft-spoken, his voice was relaxing. Other teammates calling or coming by had good intentions, but their voices echoed. I slept a lot, which made the time go by faster, and ten games later, I was ready to come back to the team. I couldn’t stand sitting out any more games, Seth was taking my spot.

Two games later, I was hit by a freight train, open ice, in LA. If I could have, I would have fought the guy myself, I was so mad. It’s better I couldn’t though, because he would have destroyed me, and Rich did a much better job fighting him for me. I missed that fight though, because I was too focused on refusing to be hurt. I didn’t want to miss any more games! Luckily it didn’t feel like the first hit and I swore I was fine, but that didn’t stop Shea from checking up on me.

The first time he asked if I was okay was on the bench as soon as we got off the ice. Then, in the locker room between periods, he wanted to check my eyes. I wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see, maybe that they were spinning in two different directions. I promised I was seeing one of everything and loud noises didn’t bother me, clear signs that I wasn’t re-concussed. And no matter what the refs penalized him for, his knee hadn’t done anything permanent to me. He mostly let it go until the end of the game.

He sat down beside me, “Are you still okay?”

I laughed, “I promise, Shea. I am fine.”

He gave me a sheepish smile, “Alright, I believe you. I don’t want to lose you for another ten games.”

I grinned at that, “You will have me. But…” I kept talking so I wouldn’t lose my nerve, “If you want to make sure, you could come out to get dinner with me tonight, to look and see that I am fine.” I didn’t take a breath until I got all the words out and had to take a couple quick ones to catch up. I tried to keep my eyes on him, not to shy away. I’d finally said it, for better or worse.

At first, he looked surprised, but slowly he nodded, “Okay, dinner.” He paused, raising an eyebrow, “Just us?”

I nodded quickly, “Yes, just us.”

He seemed to consider this for a moment, and I think I held my breath. Finally, he nodded again and said, “Okay.”

And that’s how I actually managed to ask Shea Weber out on a date and survived to tell about it.

We went out a few times after games after that, but I got the impression that he wasn’t really into it. He never tried for anything more than a friendly meal or a couple drinks and some shop talk. I didn’t think I should be trying for anything more. Last thing I wanted was him to start turning down my invitations, but I _wanted_ more. I convinced myself that it was fine, because I was getting more than anyone else, he was going out to dinner with me. I didn’t see him going out with anyone else besides Nick, and he had a boyfriend. There was someone he talked to on the phone a lot, but I didn’t think I had any business asking who it was, so I didn’t. It wouldn’t have helped if I had.

It was after that blowout game against the Blackhawks on November 17th, that Nick pulled me aside. I know the exact date, I’ll never forget it. I had been expecting this since I started hanging out with Shea, but I thought it was funny that he picked that particular game to talk to me. That game was the first time I really felt like I was Shea’s _partner_ , not just a fill-in for Ryan. We clicked in that game in a new way and I was honestly very excited about it. We’d played pretty much every shift together, including the special teams. I was officially on the top pairing, I was officially Shea’s partner. I was flying pretty high that day.

After the game, I caught Shea’s eye across the locker room, and he gave me _that_ smile. I think he felt it for the first time, too. He looked like he was okay with it, too. I started across to him when Nick intercepted me and pulled me into a side office. I expected that he was going to lecture me on the fact that Shea was rebounding, I shouldn’t be trying anything, and maybe that I really was still a stand-in for Ryan. I was really surprised by what he actually said.

“What are you waiting for?” He asked, once he had closed the office door behind us.

I just stared at him, “What?” I would call myself fluent in English by that point, but my first thought was that I had mistranslated something. I hadn’t waited on anything. In fact, my quick shot had earned me one of the two assists I had in that game.

“With Shea.”

That made even less sense. “What?”

Nick sighed, “What are you _doing_ with him?”

How was I supposed to answer that?! A thousand possible answers flashed through my mind in the second before my mouth answered for me, “Ich weiß nicht.” Well, at least I was honest.

“I have English and high school French. Try that one again?” He asked.

“I said, I don’t know. But why do you ask?” Truth be told, I knew the answer to that, but it was all I could think of to say to get a move on whatever lecture he had in mind.

He leaned against the desk, crossing his arms, and met my eyes with an expression that would have been incredibly intimidating before this game. “I’m Shea’s _friend_.” He said, carefully. “What are _you_?”

_Oh Gott_ , he was actually doing this to me. He had seen it too. I had actually replaced Ryan and he was calling me out on it. I stared at him for a whole minute in complete silence. I didn’t know if I could say it out loud, I had just figured it out today. At the same time, if someone else saw it, too, that meant it wasn’t just wishful thinking on my part, Shea must have seen it too. Nick was offering himself as practice before I said it out loud to Shea. I think I smiled.

He let slip his serious look and I could see the amusement under it, “Well?”

I took in a breath, “I’m his _partner_.”

Nick smiled, “Good. Now go tell him, and for God’s sake, Roman, _kiss him!_ ”

“Me?!” I just stared at him.

I watched Nick second guess what I was going to say, but decide to soldier on, “Yes, you! He’s not going to kiss you first.”

“Does he want to kiss me?” Looking back on this conversation, I’m half surprised that Nick didn’t tell Shea to run as fast as he could away from me, I was too stupid to exist.

Nick rolled his eyes, but found patience somewhere, “Yes. But he won’t do it. That’s just how he is. I know you’re younger, and he’s the Captain and all that, but you need to be the one to do it. You knew that though, you’re the one that has to ask him out every time. He wants to go, but he won’t ask. This is the same thing. Just do it.”

I bit my lip but didn’t say anything else. He was right, I did always have to ask him, but he was quick to accept. Nick made perfect sense, but that didn’t mean I could actually take his advice. He gestured that I could leave, and I did, quickly. I respected this advice and appreciated that he took the time to give it to me, but it took something happening for me to be able to use it.

We were playing the Oilers on American Thanksgiving. That’s what they called it ‘ _American_ Thanksgiving’. There was a Canadian one back in October, but I missed that. I might have mentioned the Swiss version, but that had passed too, and it was mostly religious anyway. American Thanksgiving seemed to be all about food, from what I understood of it. I gathered that Shea and Ryan used to have a big thing at their house, but this year, Shea seemed pretty happy about ignoring the holiday completely, and anyone with half a brain knew exactly why. Even the Americans on the team didn’t talk about it when he was around.

The game wasn’t a big deal until almost the end of the second. And then I’m surprised that I didn’t make a scene on national television. I didn’t see the shot, all I saw was Shea crumple to the ice. Shea blocked shots all the time, he just skated them off. Wherever it hit him that time, he couldn’t skate, he couldn’t even stand. I was beside him in seconds and helped him up. That’s when I saw what had happened. The puck had hit his eye. He didn’t wear a visor back then. His eye was squeezed shut, there was blood, and it looked awful. He turned away, and we stepped up beside him to block the cameras. We helped him off the ice and he went to the locker room. I couldn’t tell you what happened in the rest of the game if you offered me a billion franken.

I had planned to find Shea right after I got off the ice, but the media wanted to talk to me. They wanted to know how Shea was, what his injury meant to us, and they were asking _me_. The media decided that I was the one that should speak for Shea. I’m not sure what I said, all I was thinking was that the media knew I was Shea’s partner, too. And all I wanted to do was go check on him.

I found out after I got back to the locker room that they’d taken him to the hospital for x-rays. By the time I got there, Nick was already there. He met me in the waiting room. “It didn’t hit his eye, it hit beside his eye, they said. The trainers figure there’s a broken bone or two in there, so they sent him here. That’s all I know.”

I nodded, “I will stay here.”

He patted me on the shoulder, “I thought you would. Let me know, okay?”

I told him I would. It wasn’t until Shea was in a room that I was allowed to go see him, which meant a lot of sitting around in that waiting room and feeling nervous. The one upside to all that waiting with just my own thoughts was that I resolved to take Nick’s advice as soon as I could. You don’t feel this worried about someone and shy away from explaining why to them.   

By the time I was shown to his room, his eye was bandaged. I didn’t say anything when I walked in, in case he was sleeping. I just sat in the chair beside the bed and put my hand over his beside him on the bed.

His voice startled me, “Is the game over?”

“Yeah. Are you—how do you feel?” I stood up, leaning over him, as if I could check his eye through the bandage.

He rolled his shoulders with a groan, “My head hurts.” He opened his good eye but seemed to decide that focusing on me was too much work, and he closed it again.

I made a sound that somewhere between a laugh and a scoff, “Yeah. Uh, the puck hit you, your eye.”

“I know. I remember it.” He started to sit up, but I pushed him back down. He grunted, “I’m fine.”

I kept my hand on his shoulder, “You are in the hospital. They say when you are fine.”

He relaxed back against the bed, so I took my hand away. “Are you going to take me home?” He asked. He might have smiled as he said it or maybe it was my imagination.

I would have blushed if I hadn’t been so worried about his eye. As it were, all I was thinking about was what damage that puck had caused and trying to remember who exactly had shot it. “Yeah. I am, when they say you can go. But that is not now, so relax.”

Shea sighed and closed his eye again. “Tell me about the game?” He asked.

I laughed a little, “You sound like me when I was hurt. And you said I should rest and not worry about the game. So, I say the same to you.”

He would have rolled his eyes had his eyes been open, but the expression on his face was clear enough. “I still told you about the games, didn’t I?”

I sighed, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed. “Ja, you did. It helped me a lot. I think I never said how much it helped. Danke.” I reached out to touch his hand and he turned his over, curling his fingers around mine.

“Bitte.” He smiled, but kept his eyes closed. I knew Shea didn’t speak any German whatsoever, which meant he had looked up at least that much up at some point, to have in reserve. It was so simple and yet it made my stomach flutter.

Before I could change my mind, I leaned over and kissed him. It was just a very soft, gentle press of our lips, but my heart was racing at least a million miles an hour. I didn’t say anything as I pulled back, just watched him.

He smiled, “Me too.” He picked my hand up to hold in both of his. “Now, please tell me about the game.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, “Okay, but you rest. I need you back out there with me in less than ten games.”

“One or two, tops.”

He missed the next three games. We lost all of them. They were at home and he was at the arena for all of them. He talked to the team in the locker room, despite not suiting up. He was showing all the “captainy” traits that everyone talks about when they mention him. He could have sat back and let those with an A on their jersey deal with it, but that wasn’t his style, especially during a losing streak.

Someone told me that as the “captain’s boy” I was supposed to step up. I didn’t even know what that expression meant until Nick explained it to me. The person with the Captain was supposed to be a go-to kind of guy, especially when the Captain wasn’t around. I wondered if Ryan was able to handle it better than I was, but I didn’t ask. I tried to remember how Shea handled a losing game between periods. Despite the fact I didn’t even have an A yet, and I wasn’t even officially with Shea, I tried! I’m positive that it had absolutely no effect, but at least I tried.

Maybe hockey-wise that season wasn’t my best one, but in my personal life, it sure as hell was. That kiss in the hospital wasn’t the only time I worked up the nerve to do that and by the All-Star break, we were actually dating. Maybe we had been before that, but it wasn’t until then that I heard Shea actually refer to me as his boyfriend out loud to someone else. I wasn’t about to say it before he did, though I’d said it in my head plenty of times. And I was practically living at his house. He hadn’t actually asked me to move in, but he did invite me home every night. I only stopped in my apartment when I needed laundry.

Shea has a son that he shares with Ryan. I remember him as a baby, when they were both in the locker room. I honestly expected when Brooks was in Nashville, Shea wouldn’t invite me home. I was all prepared to tell him that it was perfectly fine. But that wasn’t what happened. He told me that he wanted his son to get to know me because we were going to be around each other a lot. He was three years old at the time and I was nervous as anything to meet him as his father’s boyfriend. Turns out, I didn’t have to be nervous at all. Brooks was the most easy-going kid I’ve ever encountered. We hit it off right away and pretty soon after, I started teaching him German. Shea didn’t seem to mind, in fact, I think he was paying attention to the lessons himself. I started to notice he’d toss a word in here and there, when he could. It was unbelievably charming.

We didn’t have playoffs that year, and I had planned to go back home to Bern once the season was over. I honestly wasn’t looking forward to it, for the first time in my life. One night, as we were lying in bed, I jokingly asked Shea if he would come visit me over the summer.

“I’m glad you brought that up,” He said, turning on his side to look at me.

I blinked a few times, trying to remember exactly what I had said. I had just made an offhanded comment about how nice Switzerland was in the summer. I hadn’t really expected him to actually fly out to Europe, but by the look on his face, it had been on his mind. I tried not to look hopeful. “Ja?”

He didn’t say anything for a minute, just looked at me. I think he was trying to decide if he really wanted to say what he was about to say. Whatever he saw, he liked, because he took a deep breath and said, “The baby is coming this summer.”

I nodded. Of course I knew Bailey was pregnant, but I wasn’t sure what that had to do with me. She had been in his life a lot longer than I had. When I was around the house, I had tried to help her as much as I could. I wasn’t much of a cook, and she was really good at it, but I could chop or set the table. I thought it would be weird, being around the house with her there, but it really wasn’t. She had practically grown up with Shea, they had married because they were friends, not because they were in love. And she was so nice to me, it was impossible not to like her. Once, she thanked me in German, for taking care of Shea. I thought about that a lot.

Shea saw that I didn’t understand his point, and he smiled. “We’d like you to be there.”

When light dawned on what he was saying, my eyes went wide. I didn’t say anything, I just stared at him. I had finally adjusted to the fact that I was his partner and his boyfriend, and now he was asking to take things to a whole new level. I would be lying to say I didn’t dream about it happening someday, but I never thought Shea would. At least not yet.

Shea raised an eyebrow, “Do you not want to… get that deeply involved?” He asked, cautiously.

“No, no it’s not that!” I said quickly, “You want… you are asking… well, what are you asking?” I managed to stammer out. I kept everything to English, which was better than the last time he shocked me. I didn’t sound any less stupid though. One thing at a time.

“Do you want to be involved in the baby’s life?” He was watching me as much as listening for my answer, so I tried to get the shocked look off my face.

I was still trying to process exactly what he was saying, I wasn’t at my most brilliant. “Bailey is okay with it?” I asked.

He nodded, “We talked about it, about you. She likes you a lot. That’s better than I can say for… _anyone else_.” He purposefully didn’t say Ryan’s name. I hated being compared to him, though it was nice when I came out ahead on the comparison. “They never got along. So, do you want to be involved?”

Did I want to be involved? It wouldn’t be like hanging out with Brooks, he called me ‘uncle’. If I was going to be involved with the baby, I was going to have to be a parent. It wasn’t what I was expecting. I was twenty-four, I hadn’t thought about having a family yet. But the more the idea floated around my head, the more I started to like it. I took in a breath and made a choice. “Yes. I do.”

He didn’t miss a beat, as if he knew I would say that, “How much?”

I started to speak and then stopped. I took in another deep breath and made sure everything was in solid English. “How much do you _want_ me involved?”

Shea smiled at that, “I was looking up with the Swiss German word for ‘father’ was, if it was different from Germany German, which is what the apps are teaching me.”

My eyes went wide again. I didn’t mind Brooks calling me uncle, I had expected that’s what this baby would call me too. “Uh… vater. We say ‘vati’, it is like in English ‘dad’. There are other words, too, but that is what I use.” I spoke before I could really process what I was saying. Brooks had asked me a thousand times what the German word for something was, it was just natural answering the question.

“Vati. Good, that’s different. I like it.” Shea was watching me with a smile. I’m pretty sure he could tell I hadn’t processed what he was saying yet and he was trying hard not to laugh about it.

“You… you want….” I was determined to keep everything in English, but I had a terrible habit of forgetting the whole language when my mind was spinning. He did that to me every so often. He told me after that the first time we went to bed together that I hadn’t used one word of English the whole time. He said that was why he was trying to learn the language, but the apps he’d downloaded didn’t teach him _those_ words.

Shea couldn’t hold back the laugh, “Would you like to try it in German first?” I gave his shoulder a little shove, but he moved back, now leaning over me. His eyes were laughing even as he tried to keep it off his lips.

I knew he was teasing me, I laughed, but I took him up on the offer all the same. “Ja, würde ich! Meinst du das ernst? Du willst dass ich deinem Kind ein Vater bin?” I reached up to touch his cheek, my voice softening, “Bist du sicher? Liebst du mich?”

He kissed me briefly, far too quick, before he replied. “Okay, I didn’t get most of that. But we do want you to be a father to our baby, and I can tell you one more thing.” He leaned down, whispering beside my ear, “Ich liebe dich.”

I think I gasped. It was not the reaction I had planned to have, when I worked up the nerve to tell him how I felt out loud. And believe me, I have planned the whole thing out in my head a few times, mostly at night when I couldn’t sleep and he could. In all of that, though, not once was I speechless. In my head I’m a lot smoother than I am in real life. Especially, unfortunately, around Shea.

I realized about a second too late that my silence had meaning, judging by the look on his face. I think I actually saw him worry that he had said too much. Sometimes I forget that he doubts himself because, well, he’s him. I jumped in quickly before that thought could settle in his head too long. “Oh! Ich liebe dich! I love you. So much. And I would be so honored to be a father with you.”

He smiled, relieved I think, and I could see his shoulders relax. He really had thought for a second that I wouldn’t reply in kind. I pulled him down into a kiss, sliding my hand to the back of his neck to keep him there until I could show him exactly how true what I had just said was. He moved over me, I wrapped my arms around him, and I can say for sure that was the first time we _made love_.

Beckette was born that summer. Shea put him in my arms shortly after he was born, and I was so beyond speechless. He was small and pink. He opened his eyes and I swear he smiled at me, even if that’s probably not possible for a baby that’s less than an hour old. I was absolutely in love with him the second I held him. Bailey picked out his name. I kind of thought the ‘e’ at the end made it seem like a girl’s name, or really French, but I didn’t say anything. She carried him, she was going to take care of him most of the time, she had every right to have the biggest say in his name, and she liked it spelled that way.

I was still holding him when Shea started filling out the birth certificate form. He took a seat beside Bailey’s bed. My focus was on the baby. I had been standing but I eventually wandered over to sit on the built-in couch under the window. I knew I’d have to give him back to Bailey soon and I didn’t want to because everything he did was absolutely amazing. He wasn’t doing much, to be honest, just yawning and looking around. I wondered what he was seeing, how he was processing the world for the first time. Could he understand that a person was holding him? Did he know I was his father? Could he feel comfortable yet? What was he thinking? Could he even think? What language did babies think in?

They were talking to me I didn’t hear it. I missed the question entirely and only looked away from Beckette when I felt a tap on my leg. “Onkel Roman. Pa’s talking to you!” Brooks had climbed up to sit beside me at some point, but I hadn’t noticed. He was looking thoroughly unimpressed at his new brother.

I shook my head to clear it, grinning at to Brooks, “He was?” I looked up at Shea. He was laughing at me and I think I blushed because Brooks started to giggle too. “How long have you been trying to get my attention?”

“ _Hours_.” Shea was still laughing.

Bailey tisked and swatted Shea’s arm. “Be nice to him. I remember how you were when you first held Brooks.” She smiled at me, “He only called you twice. And what we want to know is if you want Beckette to have your last name too.”

I stared at her. I hadn’t considered that it would be an option. When Bailey married Shea, she took his name. I assumed that’s the name the baby would have. I wasn’t honestly sure what Brooks’ last name was. I know that the press said Brooks was Ryan’s, but he lived with Shea most of the time. I had never wondered if they had hyphenated his name before, but I was wondering now. I think I glanced over to him as I was trying to process the question, and I think he took that as me looking for his input.

“I have _zwei_ last names. Brooks _Suter-Weber_.” He informed me, matter-of-factly. Well, that answered that. “I have a sister that has some of those names, but she’s not Weber. She lives with my Daddy, but she has _zwei_ last names too! She has a different other daddy. My brother should have _zwei_ too. But different ones. He has Pa and he has you! He needs those names. That’s how it works.” He nodded, satisfied that he had made the decision for all of us. “Beckette Josi-Weber. Like that.”

I looked from him to Bailey to Shea and then down to the baby in my arms. My son. “Oh, ja… _yes_.” I looked up at them, settling on Bailey for a long moment, “Thank you. _Danke._ ”

The rest of the summer went by in a blur. I learned to change diapers, which wasn’t too hard. I also was woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of cries over the monitor, which was much harder. I never used to sleep late, but I did like to get eight hours. Beckette didn’t care, and I wasn’t about to ignore him. I tried to do everything I could to make Bailey’s life as easy as possible, and if that meant feeding him at 3am, I could handle that. We knew how much more work she’d have to do once the season started, so we did as much as we could during the summer. The only thing I couldn’t handle was the torture-device-looking thing that Bailey called a ‘breast pump’, I didn’t need to be in the room for its use. She teased me about being afraid of it, and she wasn’t too wrong, but I appreciated that there were bottles in the fridge when we needed them in the middle of the night.

It took most of the summer for everything to sink in. My son. At one point, Shea asked me if I wanted to spend any time back home. I couldn’t fathom the idea of leaving them, even to go home to see my family. I wasn’t sure if newborn babies could fly, being that small. Or if they should. Bailey said he _could_ , but that he probably _shouldn’t_ fly until he was a few months old at least. We had to be back in Nashville in September, he’d have to fly then. It wasn’t a great idea to subject him to fourteen hours of flying and airports, if we didn’t have to. I sent my parents pictures and promised that we’d come see them next summer.

My mother called and said she’d try to come out sometime during the season. I silently hoped she wouldn’t be able to make it. It’s not that my mother is a bad person, she’s not! She’s a great mom, but she’s… my mom. And I really didn’t want to subject Shea to the third degree she’d put him through. His German was shaky, and she wouldn’t make it easy on him. After I hung up, I made a joke about mothers being difficult and watched the smile fade off Shea’s face. He explained to me, in that very soft voice he gets, that his mother had passed away the summer before he had been named Captain. I apologized, and he brushed it off, I hadn’t known. But I couldn’t help but feel that Ryan wouldn’t have made that mistake.

When we got back to Nashville, Shea suggested that it wouldn’t make sense for me to continue to rent my apartment when I didn’t use it. I’m proud to say that I reacted to that as smoothly as I’d planned to and happily agreed to move in with him. No shock, no unwanted German, I just accepted. I was getting better at this. Besides, I’d been waiting all summer for him to ask me. I didn’t think I should be the one to say something about it, but I kept remembering Nick talking about how bad Shea was at initiating anything. He didn’t ask until September, but he did ask. So, I guess we both scored a point on that one.

I settled into my role on the team, too, on the ice and off. I wasn’t wearing an A, but I was expected to do some leading anyway, which I was fine with. Off the ice, though, I realized that being the Captain’s boyfriend meant that I was supposed to be ready to help people with their relationship issues, if they needed someone to talk to. I wasn’t sure how I qualified for that considering I was in my first serious relationship, but dating the Captain seemed to be enough credentials. Honestly, I don’t think James cared who he was talking to, as long as someone was willing to listen. We had just got him that season and I found myself wondering if Sidney Crosby’s boyfriend had to listen to him as much last season. I was tempted to ask Shea to ask him, considering they played together for Canada, but I never did. It didn’t matter really because I didn’t mind listening to James most of the time.

Kevin played his first NHL game that season. He had made a name for himself back home last season, playing on both the Worlds and World Junior teams, which I guess didn’t happen often. But honestly it was less impressive doing that for the Swiss national team, than say the Canadian or American ones. The articles about it said Sergei’s brother Andrei had done it a while back, for Belarus. Another team that didn’t have a ton of choices.

I hate to say it, but I hadn’t really noticed Kevin during Worlds. I didn’t want to play in the tournament, honestly. Shea hadn’t played for Canada. It had been an Olympic year, and we had both played in Sochi. He had won gold, so I guess he felt like he did his duty to Canada for the year. Switzerland didn’t have a lot of NHL players to her name, and certainly no hockey gold medals, so I felt an obligation to play in Worlds. Anyway, I assume that’s when I met Kevin, but I didn’t remember talking to him. And he’s the kind of person you remember.

I had been standing facing my stall, looking at the phone in my hand. I had sent my mother a video of Brooks and Beckette, and since it was the middle of the afternoon there, she was texting back. She had taken to becoming a grandmother really well and she sent the boys packages almost once a week. Shea had to get to the rink early for morning meetings. He told me I could sleep later, if I wanted, but usually I drove in with him. I didn’t mind, honestly, getting a little time to myself on the ice before everyone else. It wasn’t that I doubted my position on the top pairing, but a little extra work wouldn’t hurt.

“Entschuldigung, können Sie mir sagen, wo mein Stand ist?”

I have never turned around so fast in my life. Of everything I had expected that morning, hearing German wasn’t on the list. It honestly took me a second to comprehend what I was hearing, which goes to show how much English was in my life. Brooks was getting better at the language, but he was the only Weber I could say that about.

I blinked a couple times at the source of the voice. He looked like he was twelve. What was a kid doing asking for his stall? “Wer sind Sie?” I asked. He had been formal, I couldn’t help but be formal back to him, even if he was clearly younger than me, it just came out that way. The question wasn’t exactly polite, but in my defense, it was early in the morning and I was still mostly asleep.

He shifted the bag over his shoulder and held his hand out, “Kevin Fiala. Ich wurde gerade angerufen. Wir haben letztes Jahr zusammen bei Worlds gespielt.”

I stepped forward to shake his hand. I recognized his name, of course, but I hadn’t been able to place his face before he said it. We had a couple players injured, so I wasn’t all that surprised that we had called someone up. “Na sicher. Es tut mir Leid. Herzlich willkommen. Hier ist ein leerer Stand.” I gestured to an empty stall near the door. I wasn’t sure if that was my call to make, but I couldn’t let the kid just stand there.

“Danke.” He sat down where I’d indicated but kept his eyes on me.

I glanced back at my phone, but I could feel his eyes. Was I supposed to be doing something else? If he didn’t have any English, showing him around was going to fall to me. Usually that job went to someone with a letter on their jersey. “Uh… Soll ich dich herumführen?” If I was lucky, he’d say no.

He smiled a little, “Wenn es Sie nichts ausmacht ...”

I sighed, but smiled, “Wenn du nicht aufhören höflich zu sein…” I left off what exactly I’d do if he didn’t stop using the formal form of address, but order was enough, usually, to get someone comfortable. There wasn’t anything like that in English, so I didn’t have to deal with that here, but I had dealt with it on Swiss teams.

He held up his hands, “If you want, I can use a language that doesn’t have that problem.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, “No, there is no worry about being too polite in English.”

He grinned, cheekily, “Neexistuje ani tento problém v češtině.”

I could tell already that he was going to be trouble. “That was not German. I may talk English most of the time, but I do still know the difference.”

“It was Czech. I am Czech.” He explained.

I raised an eyebrow at him, “Ah, so you were a spy when you were playing for Schweizer Eishockeynationalmannschaft, hmm? I might have picked a different team to spy on. Maybe Canada?”

“The Czech Republic did better than Canada last year. Not in the Olympics, but…” He shrugged, as if that was simply to be expected. Which, honestly, it was.

“Maybe so, but they both did better than die Schweiz, so I still wonder why you pick us to spy on.” I sat in my stall leaving my phone on the shelf, my attention on him.

He pretended to think about this for a moment, and then replied, “Jag borde ha spionat på svenskarna, tror jag.”

I might have rolled my eyes. If I didn’t, I wanted to. I had no idea what he said, but it wasn’t German, and I didn’t think the accent sounded Czech either. “How many do you speak?”

He was blushing, but still he smiled, “Fünf.”

I was just starting to call myself perfectly fluent in English and my French was weak. And this kid comes in speaking five languages without any accent that I could hear. “Well, since you speak English, the Captain can show you around, and I don’t have to.” He actually looked disappointed at that and I found myself feeling bad. I stood up, shaking my head, “I am joking. Come. I will show you.”

It would not be the last time I fell for Kevin’s pout.


End file.
